If this isn’t protocol already, it should be. If you are an agent with a buyer interested in a listing, by far the best way to get their questions answered is to email the listing agent. There are many reasons to do this, not the least of which is that you’ll get answers in writing, but why would you ever feel that you’ll get a more accurate answer from a harried, preoccupied agent in the car en route to an appointment who clicks you through on call waiting than emailing them than having someone get you answers in writing, straight from the file? 

Some of these calls catch me at an awful time, and, with 35-50 listings to service and a brokerage to run, if I don’t have a file in front of me in the car, I’m going to ask you to email me. If I got 2-3 questions on every listing today, that would be 70-150 requested answers with my liability hanging in the balance each time. I don’t like those odds, and I don’t want to be inaccurate either. Do I get that many questions a day? No, frankly. But 20-30 questions? You bet. 

Consider the advantages:

• You get the answer in writing;
• You don’t get answers piecemeal;
• Email is permanent and is a paper trail of you doing your client’s due diligence;
• Email doesn’t forget;
• Email covers your rear end. 

I grew up in Ossining and still reside in the Ossining school district. Ossining is the fictional home of the Draper Family from the AMC Series Mad Men, and is also home of both Sing Sing Prison (the origin of the phrase “up the river” from the old gangster movies) and Maryknoll Catholic Mission. It is about 35 miles north of Mid Town Manhattan, and beat Houston, TX to the punch by electing an openly gay mayor several years ago. It was a wonderful place to grow up and I am proud to call it home. 

70 homes sold in the village thus far in 2009, compared to 78 during the same time period in 2008. Prices are also down, with the median price of $387,000 in 2009 compared to $416,000 in 2008. 

Overall, $387,000 is down considerably from the 2005 median peak of $443,000. There are 64 active listings now, putting the current inventory of homes at about 11 months worth of available properties. Given the quality of life you can enjoy here, with prices this low Ossining is probably one of the best bargains in Westchester County going in to 2010. 

I have blogged about Croton on Hudson previously. Croton is a beautiful river village just about an hour north of Manhattan by train, and is a popular commuting point. I spent much of my youth there, as my older brother and his family have resided there since about 1980. 

Of the 42 single homes sales this year, the price breakdown is below. My data source is the Westchester-Putnam MLS. 

There are no surprises here. If you want a decent place for under half a million, Croton is a fantastic choice. It has upscale homes also, but overall sales are down for 2009. The market started slow in the village, and thus far this year only 42 homes have sold. In 2008, by comparison, 68 homes sold during the same time period. At the peak in 2005 the number was 85, so sales by transaction total are down 50% from the peak.

There are 52 homes on the market as I write this, so we have over a year’s worth of inventory available. Given the fact that available inventory is at it’s lowest ebb in December, that could swell up to well over 70 after the holidays. One good piece of news is that the median home value of $455,650 is down only about 10% from the 2005 peak of $510,000. That speaks well of the village, but speaking well of Croton comes easy to me. 

I suppose I should have blogged earlier about an article published last month, but when the subject property has been vacant since 1966 it seems only right. IN my experience, the most enigmatic downtown area in all of Westchester County is that of my own hometown of Ossining, NY. It has been punctuated by old, derelict and vacant buildings since before I was born, and no local administration has been able to make a difference. 

However, this story in the Times gives me some hope. The old Ossining National Bank building, vacant since 1966, is being converted into condominiums and retail. Given the historic nature of the building and the restrictions on its renovation, it was problematic to complete work on. 43 years hard, I guess. One wonders how every single other downtown in affluent Westchester County is able to pull it off when Ossining could not.

Still, I welcome the development and hope that it is the start of more improvements to a once proud downtown in a village that is close to my heart.  

From today’s NY Times:

Houston is the Largest City to Elect an Openly Gay Mayor

My hometown of Ossining (pop: 29,000) also has an openly gay mayor and was one of the first municipalities to elect one. This is a tremendous step forward for everyone, gay and straight, as we progress toward a better, hate-free world. 

The margin of victory at press time was 53%-47% and given the demographics of Houston, Mayor-elect Annise Parker got votes from all populations- white, male, straight, and everywhere else. 

So congratulations to Mayor-elect Parker and her constituents from this Catholic (albeit heretical), white straight male in New York. 

After 3 days away this week there is nothing like being back home. My kids, my wife, my dog. Ann’s chicken thingies with the bread crumbs. Yummy. Last night was the first really cold night of the season, so I lit a good fire. 

I have to say that my fireplace is one of my favorite things in my home. There is no place on Earth, no amenity elsewhere, no 5-Star hotel that is as welcoming as my own home and hearth. I fell asleep in the couch with my laptop and that fire cooking with Max, my German Shepherd, sawing wood 5 feet away. 

That contraption you see is a cool system for blowing fire-heated air into the living room. It helps with the heat and keeps us toasty. 

A fireplace was on my “must have” list when Ann and I bought our new home in 2007. I also had to have a basement. I got both. Things like this make me mindful of my clients’ “must have” list when we are out looking. 

Be warm. 

From my humor consultant, Tiffany Pratt:

Question: Why are there so many toxic waste dumps in New Jersey and so many lawyers in New York?

Answer: New Jersey got to pick first. 

I love that one. 

I got the following email today: 

Dear Customer,

This is the reminder note to let you know that your order at <company> is almost two years old.

Your order Reference I.D.# 100-9113361 will be automatically deleted in 10 business days. We want to let you know in case you plan to re-order a product with this design:

If you would like to re-order now you can save 20% on your purchase. Click here or copy and paste the link at the bottom of this email.

Until I saw the image, I thought the email was spam. Then, I remembered that we actually used these sheets for notes when buyers would call on listings. Buyers seldom call anymore, though. There is far less a need to handwrite notes on their preferences and criteria. Bad news? 

Not really. Buyers are emailing and filling out online forms with their data now. We no longer take dictation because the information is now online in the data the prospective buyers submit. Some of it is sparse, to be sure, but who didn’t get phone calls that were just as close to the vest? It wasn’t too long ago I was living off of post-it notes and carbon paper messages.  

Clearly, the business has changed. That is good on a variety of levels. When it is online, the data is hard to lose under the car seat. It uses less paper. We can simply forward it to the company agent we refer to. We use a Gmail platform, so organizing and tracking the inquiries distributed to the agents is streamlined.

Everybody wins. Well, everybody except the printer. 

The Good Faith Estimate (GFE) is among the most important documents in your life in my view. When you apply for a mortgage, you have to, by law, be given one, and it is aptly named- it is an estimate of the costs associated with your mortgage, itemized and estimated, deemed in good faith to be accurate. These costs include closing costs, bank fees, escrows, and every penny you’ll need at closing.

If, for some reason, there is a significant change in your costs as your mortgage process goes forward, you should be given a revised GFE. There should be no surprises at the closing table, and you should never be subject to a last minute scramble in the days prior to closing because the initial estimate was too low.

The bait and switch occurs when costs change so late into the process that the borrower is forced into choosing between possibly losing a deal or being coerced (extorted) into paying higher fees because they can’t switch lenders.

Just yesterday, a scheduled closing on a buyer client of mine was adjourned because the lender told the buyer that his costs would be $17,000 higher than initially represented at his application. I’m not accusing anyone of a bait and switch, as the reasons given included a far higher tax bill than anticipated and higher title fees. But $17,000 is an absurdly high amount of money to fail to account, and someone dropping the ball big time. If it isn’t clear already, the client found this lender on his own and we had no reason to be concerned thus far.

My advice to the client was to get out his GFE and see where they went wrong. I want to see it. New York is a high cost market with expensive fees for sure, but you don’t overlook 17k and then find it the day of closing without serious fraud or incompetence.

The answer, my friend, may not be blowing in the wind, but it sure is in the Good Faith Estimate.

Let me preface my remarks by stating that when I act as a buyer agent I truly enjoy negotiating the best deal I can for my buyers. But make no mistake; we make a deal. I’ll explain after I list a few examples of what I don’t mean:

• On a $450,000 listing, an offer of $400,000 comes in with a remark on the cover sheet: “Buyer is unable to be very negotiable with this offer.”
• On another listing, the buyer agent tells us that their buyer has been looking for a home for 2 years. 2 years. After I get the seller to accept their offer, the buyer walks. We took too long.
• In a multiple bid situation, we ask each party to make their highest and best offer. One party withdraws, not wanting to get into a bidding war.
• In about a half dozen aborted deals in the past 3 months, I have been told by either the buyer or their agent that they are looking at homes they do not qualify for and that they just make 80-85% offers because they want to steal something.

None of the buyers in the above examples bought anything! All they did was go from property to property bullying and posturing, and they still live in their in-law’s basement. And with an $8,000 tax credit, insanely low rates, prices down to 2003 and 2004 levels in some places (and lower), and sellers willing to do more to cut a deal than they have in years, if you still live in that basement apartment, you missed out. It takes a special kind of obtuse to be a buyer in a market where so much is done to help you, and still not actually buying anything in multiple attempts. My advice? Go to the corner store and buy some gum. Prime that spending pump. Then work your way up.

A buyer’s market gives buyers an advantage. Buyers are getting better deals now than they have in the past 20 years. To take advantage of it, however, the buyers actually have to BUY SOMETHING. Beating the crap out of a seller and then walking away because they didn’t throw in their 17 year old daughter is not making a purchase, it is being a serial haggler. Now, some seller’s are unreasonable. But if you are on your 3rd offer, it probably isn’t the seller.

It isn’t a “haggler’s market.” You have to be a buyer to take advantage of a buyer’s market. To be a buyer, you must actually buy something. Otherwise, all these incentives and advantages are just words on paper. I’ll tell you what isn’t words on paper- living with your mother in law.